Outcast (castaway Module) Beta 005 Released

[Radek]

I don't think Atari ever intended to use Windows.. ie: GEM was a competitor to Windows early on, and Atari was using GEM back in 1985 (perhaps late 1984?) .. I'd have to check, but thats about the era of what, pre-Windows 1.0? Windows 1 and Windows 2 were total shite (just memory managers pretty much), so GME slaughtered them until Windows 3 came around.. So Windows 1 was 1985 release and Windows 2.0 was 1987. So there was no real danger for GEM

There were some talks with Microsoft anyway (as stated on the Wikipedia) but any workable windows version for ST could show too late.

But still it's pretty funny as I didn't know about this fact for years...

(Unless you mean on the TT or Falcon or ATW or the like .. I don't know much about their development internally in Atari..)

/me hugs his TT030

jeff

​

Well... I didn't know most of interesting things until recently...
We could have a different cpu in the ST series - the NS32032 instead of 68K.

 

[DaveC]

Being a coder means knowing way too much about a given problem domain (and using terms like "problem domain"

I'm going to break for a bit .. I think 004 is pretty darned stable, though maybe I'll tweak controls for craig so he can play Ghosts N Goblins better

I've got to do real life work for awhile, andf get my dev environments working again for Palm, Pocket PC, windows, etc (new machine and sold old one, and it only does gp2x dev right now ..

jeff

​

Is there still an option to map "up" to a button? I liked that because so many games used joystick up for jump. Will try later and let you know if there are bugs.

 

[halo9]

The misses with be happy about the volume control :rolleyes: .

​

Ha! I know what you mean! When my girlfirend's about I'm only allowed to play emulators with volume controls or where you can disable audio emulation...

 

[skeezix]

Everyone is good with the database scanning and such?

My wife is _so_ sick of the Automation 133 (Xenon 2) demo music. I use that a lolt since its Xenon, but also because its has YM music up front and then Samples right after for the music intro.

DaveC -- once I add a config file system you'll be able to define your own modes, and I'll likely map SELECT to show the mode-listing; ie: Show all modes, and by default there is only the one so it just goes to keyboard .. ut if theres a bunch of .cnf files, have select show Keyboard first, and then the cnf files? Or maybe have left-shoulder or something be cnf-picker .. trying to keep modes/cnfs easily pickable, but without tieing up buttons, and without resorting to going through to the runtime menu (too many steps to alter runtime config)

jeff

 

[IanJ]

I still have big problems with the joystick control in this emulator. For example, Pacmania is just about unplayable because it doesn't realise you've moved the Joystick for several SECONDS. Lemmings is unplayable as you can only move the cursor left/right. The menu is really really hard to use. :-(

I'm really suprised to find this problem and I'm sure my 2X is working just fine as all other emus and things work fine... but, I assume it MUST be something wrong with my device since nobody else seems to be having these problems? :blink:

 

[skeezix]

Its almost certainly the goofy joystick bias; but I'll bo soe tweaking to alter which of DaveC's famous control schemes I'm using. I'll make it selectable..

jeff

 

[ThorC]

Fantastic as always! I've been constantly checking back looking forward to the next version

Great exit and MSA's are working and playable Xenon

3 quick questions - how does the database thing work? (Currently, all my games are in titled zipped files, eg. xenon.zip thanks to GameBase)

Secondly, in the save state menu, what does the option 'B to use as filename' do? When I press B, it appears to do nothing.

Finally, does Outcast support having games in folders?

A few feature suggestions, if you don't mind them at this stage:

+ Insert disk and restart ST option in disk management
+ Option to current disk image filename as savestate
+ Keep filename of save state persistent. EG when saving a state, then saving again, keep the filename used before to save re-entering (not the speediest method )
+ Scaling/Centering option
+ Ability to save options with a game. EG associate a savestate, throttle speed, frameskip etc. with a game so the options don't need to be set each time
+ An option to save an auto-save state when exitting and reload that upon next startup (for those quck got to exit and go moments)
+ Just thinking it might be useful if holding the joystick kept it going trough the list, that'd be useful too. (It stops after one item when holding down)
+ To be able to select Savestates seperate to games (With a lot of games, it's hard to find them, unless I name them to come up at the top)
+ Selecting a savestate while the game is running, it'd perhaps be good if you could chose 'Overwrite this savestate' in addition to loading it?

Just a couple of quick things I thought while playing. I'm sure they're either a) Already thought of, B) Not worthwhile putting in or c) Not the right time for feature suggestions, but thought I'd suggest in case

Other than that, I love Outcast and it gets more enjoyable each release

[Edit]

I still have big problems with the joystick control in this emulator. For example, Pacmania is just about unplayable because it doesn't realise you've moved the Joystick for several SECONDS.

I interestingly get this too. Pacmania seems impossible to play

Plus, I still seem to be getting an odd bug where after playing with OUTCAST for a while, no matter what game I use or what settings I have, it won't accept any input

 

[skeezix]

I've included built-in a recent version of the database; its a textfile that has a disk 'name' code, a list of CRCs for it (multiple CRCs since there are disk variations) and a list of games on that disk. It can makeit check for a textfile to use instead of the built in one, and then you could add to it. As is, I've got some tools on the CaSTaway website you can use to give me CRCs and I can add them to the database.

On the CaSTaway page you'll find the database textfile, and the top page of it details the format and how to add to it.

For savestate .. 'b' means save with this filename; if you've not entered a filename, its blank so just bails out

It makes sense to re-use the disk images base part of the filename for a default savestate name.

Making a '..' and 'enter directory' option is in the cards, so you can sor them by directory. Never been a big concern of mine since the database tends to make it pretty clear

I don't recall if the DB checks inside of zip files or not. It can (ie: do a database lokoup by hand with the menu), but I don't recall if it magicly does it during the Big Scan.

jeff

 

[ruffnutts]

I know its not useful and you counld not use it properly but is it posible to install cubase for the atari st with this emu, i just want to see what it looks like on it lol

 

[skeezix]

Cubase and Notator only work in ST high res (640x400), so to draw on 320x240 we'd be throwing out 75% of the pixels, so it'd look pretty nasty.. ie: not usable, but vaguely identifiable

jeff

 

[ruffnutts]

Ok cheers for clearing that up for me, i still havn`t played any games on this emu yet

 

[thoro]

skeezix, this is superb!

I never had an Atari ST, I chose the Amiga 1000 back in the 80s - but tonight I spent some hours playing some games on OutcaST and now I know why the Atari ST fans love this machine...

 

[skeezix]

thoro -- glad to bring you around, or back

I'll be adding some control bias options too, to make the gp2x joystick better.

jeff

 

[DaveC]

skeezix, this is superb!

I never had an Atari ST, I chose the Amiga 1000 back in the 80s - but tonight I spent some hours playing some games on OutcaST and now I know why the Atari ST fans love this machine...

​

Snap out of it! Everyone knows that the Amiga was the best, right Jeff?

 

[DaveC]

thoro -- glad to bring you around, or back

I'll be adding some control bias options too, to make the gp2x joystick better.

jeff

​

Ok I tested. This version I tried the Automation .002 which the menu was all screwey and scrambled in prevoius versions. It is now ledgable in this version. It is dark however and the rasters are "vibrating" . It seems some ST screen refresh timing emulation issue or something. When I go to a game the screen brightness is normal and fine. I noticed this vibrating in the newest version in the automation menu rasters on the GP32 as well. It didn't do that in older versions. I notice that in the emu menus there is slight screen flicker too.

I also found that the keyboard stops taking input after awhile too. For the record I had the same thing happen in the GP32 version.

I noticed while navigating the keyboard LEFT of the joystick almost always registers as UP. You need to do a case 2 bias on this.

The sound is still a bit dodgy but it is getting better.

 

[chaos engineer]

first of all, OutCast is already a really impressive emulator, thanks to the dev for his fine work.

I was playing around a bit yesterday and I got three (off topic) questions:
- Can somebody explain me the massive success of Robocop? The game is just crap. However, I can remember that I played it a lot on the Amiga.
- Is there a Senible Soccer version that is supported by OutCast? I tried v1.2 or something which hangs if you press the joystick button.
- I do not know why, but I love Powerdrome although I am not able to deal with the controls. Is there somebody on this forum whois good in playing Powerdrome? One of the toughest games?

........and: Stunt Car Racer is one of the best games ever.

 

[Dastardly]

Is there anyone who can get either Gods or Cadaver (2 disk version) working?

Im still having no luck with either of these.

 

[skeezix]

Dastardly:
I'v not tried i ages, but historically with my emus there have been some trouble games; Sensi Soccer (and that developers other titles) and I think Cadaver is another; there may be other Cadaver and Gods versions that work.. I think I played Gods awhile back.

chaos:
I used to love Powerdrome The gp2x control bias could be buggering you up, but I'll look into DaveC's cases when I get a moment.

Robocop was just another crap Ocean title They're famous for that The arcade game is better..

Sensi .. later. For now at least, hosed.

Stuntcar .. w00t

jeff

 

[sand_man]

Well no matter what I do none of the games I have tried work at all
I appreciate all the work put into this emu, skeezix, but I give up. I've tried different TOS versions and I've even tried running my roms on a windows ST emulator and I STILL CAN'T DO IT!. Since I never owned any sort of Atari (apart from the 2600), it wouldn't surprise me if I just don't know how to use it lol.

 

[Iorgy77]

Well some things are definately improved in this version as some games are working that didn't before, Shadow Dancer crashed the emu at launch in previous versions. An intermident bug I have found are the controls dropping in and out while testing many games, The emulator has to be restarted to get controls working once again. But great work and thanks again for updating so often.